The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself.
The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence.
A child is a discoverer. He is an amorphous, splendid being in search of his own proper form.
Little children, from the moment they are weaned, are making their way toward independence.
Beauty lies in harmony, not in contrast; and harmony is refinement; therefore, there must be a fineness of the senses if we are to appreciate harmony.
A child needs freedom within limits.
The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.
A child is mysterious and powerful; And contains within himself the secret of human nature.
It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience.
Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.
He does it with his hands, by experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence.
When the child goes out, it is the world itself that offers itself to him. Let us take the child out to show him real things instead of making objects which represent ideas and closing them up in cupboards.
As soon as children find something that interests them they lose their instability and learn to concentrate.
Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.
The development of the individual can be described as a succession of new births at consecutively higher levels.
To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom.
No one can be free unless he is independent.
It is almost possible to say that there is a mathematical relationship between the beauty of his surroundings and the activity of the child; he will make discoveries rather more voluntarily in a gracious setting than in an ugly one.
If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.
No one who has ever done anything really great or successful has ever done it simply because he was attracted by what we call a ‘reward’ or by the fear of what we call a ‘punishment.’